


and if you're bleeding from the heart

by stellerssong



Series: come, love, sleep [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Changelings, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 07:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellerssong/pseuds/stellerssong
Summary: Notes on the care, keeping, and origins of a very unusual little girl.A pre-au changeling Eliza story.





	and if you're bleeding from the heart

**Author's Note:**

> In tonight's performance, the role of Catharine Schuyler will be played by Sabrina Sloan, the role of Philip Schuyler will be played by Sydney James Harcourt, and the role of the faery woman will be played by Dorcas Leung.
> 
> The following fic features a scene set in the ICU of a hospital, as well as references to a sick or dying child. Please be mindful and keep yourselves safe.

Every child is different. Cat has to keep reminding herself of that. Look at Angie: hadn’t she taken over a year to reliably sleep through the night? It’d been hell on her and Phil trying to juggle a second pregnancy and a nine-month-old demanding attention at 3 AM on the dot, every night, for weeks in a row. This is just like that, she tells herself. Every child is different. Every child has their own…difficulties. They’ll grow out of them, it just takes time. It’s just part of being a parent.

“It’s just part of being a parent,” she repeats, once and then twice and then three times, trying to work out a rhythm that fits with her slow rocking steps. Back and forth she goes, pacing out the length of the room. “Just part of being a _parent_. Just part of being a _parent_.”

She has to speak rather loudly to hear herself, because baby Betsey, in her arms, is shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Again.

It’s a pretty typical scene in the Schuyler household, these days: one of Betsey’s blankets or onesies or something must’ve gotten mixed up with a load of Angie’s laundry, or of Cat and Phil’s. That means it’s been inadvertently doused in regular detergent, or regular baby detergent, instead of the (frankly absurd and embarrassingly hippie-ish) all-natural Himalayan Soap Berries that they special order through an organic home goods catalog. That, in turn, means that Betsey has broken out in hideous, bright-red hives all over, and that all of her bedding and recently-worn clothes have to go through another wash cycle while Cat soothes her through her screaming jag.

It’ll end, as it always does. None of little Eliza’s allergic reactions seem to have any lasting ill effects; after a few frantic sprints to the hospital, they’ve learned the only real recourse they have is topical anti-itch cream (all-natural, organic, anti-itch cream specially formulated for delicate, reactive skin, of course) and removing the allergen. Which would be a lot easier to manage if _the allergen_ didn’t refer to practically every substance in the household.

“Shh, shh, shhh,” Cat croons at Eliza, trying to cut off that uncharitable thought. It’s not her fault she has all these allergies. It’s a miracle she even made it home to them at all, given the fact that she was a preemie, and how difficult labor was, and how touch-and-go things were after the c-section. And…

Cat goes quiet, Eliza’s sobs fading into white noise. Not for the first time, her mind touches and then backs away from that awful first month in and out of the hospital, that last night that she never speaks of. No, no, no. She’s—she’s only being unkind because she’s tired, and frustrated with the baby crying. She’s a modern woman. She knows all that hooey that people feed you about _endorphin floods_ and _instantaneous bonding with your child_ is made up to shame women into not questioning the demands of motherhood. She loves little Betsey, she does, just as much as she loves Angelica, and just as much as she’ll love any future child of hers and Phil’s. The fact that there’s still this, this strange disjoint between them, doesn’t change that.

If only she wouldn’t _shriek_ like that. “Betsey, sweetie pie, I can’t do anything about it,” Cat says helplessly, as Eliza lets out a howl that Cat could swear rattles the windows in their frames. “It’ll go away in a little while, just a little while.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t do much to comfort Eliza; she flails her little arms, her skin still freckled with painful-looking pink hives, and cries harder, if that were even possible. Cat sighs.

“Are you hungry, baby? It’s been a few hours since you’ve had anything. Do you want some milk? Yeah, I bet you do.”

Of course there’s no way Eliza can understand this, any more than she can understand Cat’s attempts to soothe her, but the pitch of her crying drops, and her scrunched-up face relaxes so she can peer at Cat through a constant stream of tears. “That’s right,” Cat encourages her, with more good cheer than she feels. “Let’s get you fed, huh? And by the time you’re done, that nasty rash will be all gone and you’ll feel _alllllll_ better.”

Predictably, pretty much every formula brand on the market makes Eliza throw up and leaves her in a misery of stomach cramps for hours after drinking them, so it’s breast milk or nothing. Cat moves to set Eliza down in her crib so she can unbutton her shirt, but it’s as if Eliza knows she’s about to be separated from the warmth and comfort of her mother’s arms. She thrashes her limbs about, squirming so hard that Cat has to hold her close or drop her.

“Eliza, sweetie, love, it’s only for a second, and then you’ll be able to eat,” Cat pleads. Again, no use; Eliza screams and screams and _screams_ , arching back like she’s trying to snap herself in two.

And then—

The soft fabric of the back of Eliza’s onesie collapses in under the pressure of Cat’s hand.

Cat cries out in pure horror, certain for a moment that Eliza’s back is broken. She presses Eliza against her shoulder instinctively, clutching at her, the only thing she can hear the wild panicked gallop of her own heartbeat. _Oh, God_ , she thinks, _oh God oh God oh God, I’ve hurt her, I’ve killed my baby._

It’s several awful seconds before sound and sensation cut back in. A high, piercing wail rings in Cat’s ears. She thinks it’s herself, but then realizes she’s biting her own lip, hard enough to taste blood. There’s something writhing in her arms. Eliza, of course—and oh, oh, she’s moving her arms and legs, she’s the one crying. Cat could collapse with relief. She doesn’t, luckily, but can’t restrain the sobbing laugh that slips out of her. She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s alive. It was just a weird moment of distraction, an awful fancy born of acute frustration and a lack of sleep and who knows what else.

“Oh, oh, baby, I’m sorry,” she coos to Eliza, her earlier weariness evaporated. She shifts Eliza’s weight to her hip so she can look her in the face, distorted with crying though it may be. “Oh, honey, I must have scared you. Your Mama’s a little crazy right now. That’s all, she’s a little—”

She stops abruptly. Stares at the creature crying in her arms.

It is, most assuredly, _not a human baby_.

It blinks back at her, its cries trailing off into silence. It has Eliza’s shape of face, to be sure, her round chubby cheeks and big eyes, but it’s as if those features have been carved from wood—or, more appropriately, _grew_ from wood, straight out of the trunk of a young birch tree, with none of the angularity given by chisel or knife. Its skin is ribbed and patterned with a strange, leathery texture like sapling’s bark, the soft brown touched with a hint of living green underneath. And its eyes—they’re dark from edge to edge, green-black with a glimmer of light at the center, twin forest pools reflecting the moon.

“…Eliza?” Cat breathes. The creature—the baby—whatever it is—regards her with Eliza’s quiet solemnity and waves a little hand that brushes Cat’s face. It’s not cold, but it’s certainly not as warm as living flesh and skin and bone ought to be. Just about room temperature, a bit rough, not unpleasantly so. It feels—honestly, it feels like touching the stem of a plant more than anything. Something alive, but not _living_.

And its back is still—

“Phil,” Cat says faintly, and then screeches, “ _Philip!_ ”

“Cat? Hon, what is it?” Cat can’t work up a response to this, and ends up just gaping at the Eliza-thing as his steps beat out a panicked tattoo on the stairs. “Catherine! What happened, is it Betsey, is she having a reactio—” he shouts, bursting into the room, but he falls silent as soon as he sees. He draws closer to them, laying a hand on Cat’s arm.

“What…what the…?”

“She just—changed,” Cat says. At least, she thinks she says; the shrill little voice that rings in her ears sounds nothing like her. “I was holding her, and she was crying, like always, and then she bent backwards—she—her _back_ , Phil, oh god, it—”

She spreads her fingers nervelessly over the back of Eliza’s onesie. Phil leans over to see, and lets out a gasp of horror.

“But—how? How is she…”

“Alive? I don’t know, I don’t know, just, please tell me I’m not crazy, please please please…”

“You’re not. Honey, you’re not. Or if you are, then I’m the same exact crazy.”

Through all of this, the Eliza-thing—no, no, Cat can’t keep calling her that, not with her weight solid in her arms, the steady rhythm of her breath a counterpoint to Cat’s own panicked hyperventilation— _Eliza_ remains perfectly silent, staring at the two of them like she can understand the fragments of speech they’re spitting out. Maybe she can, somehow; her ears have certainly grown long and pointed enough to pick up every sound they make. Cat tries very hard not to think the words she wants to think. _Elf. Pixie. Sprite_.

Phil passes a shaking hand over the top of Eliza’s head, where her dark downy hair has been replaced by a fine verdant growth of what looks like moss.

“Phil,” Cat says. “Phil. You remember—before, when I told you—in the hospital—”

“I remember.”

“You said it was a dream.”

“I thought it was. I just assumed…it sounded so incredible, and neither of us had been sleeping much, and I never thought…”

“I know.”

Cat breathes in Eliza’s smell, cool and green and rain-washed. It’s familiar. She’s smelled it before, when—

— _night in the NICU. The third night in a row, to be precise. She and Phil are meant to be doing this in shifts, but she can’t bear to leave him to wait alone. Last time she’d gone, there had been that meningitis scare, and it seems every other hour there’s a new issue with her breathing. Fluids pooling, collapsed lung, on and on and on. Cat doesn’t even flinch at the word_ apnea _anymore. It’s routine as a heart flutter._

_Which is a sad commentary in and of itself._

_So she’s here again. Phil has passed out, dead to the world, his long-limbed frame curled improbably in a waiting room chair. Cat is waiting in the hall adjacent to the ward. Her feet ache from standing, and her vision keeps going blurry, spots of technicolor light dancing before her eyes. But she can’t leave, return to the waiting room and sag into the chair next to Phil’s and slip away for a few hours of unconsciousness._

_Because only a few feet away, separated from her by nothing more than an interior wall and a pane of glass, her baby is fighting for her life, and Cat will be_ damned _if she leaves her to fight alone._

 _She folds her arms around herself, fists her hands in her ratty Berkeley sweater. Two rows of incubators visible through the window, one closer, one further. Betsey is in the furthest-right incubator in the close row. Hard to see her properly through the mass of equipment and lights, but every so often there’ll be a little motion, the wave of a tiny jaundiced hand or foot._ Hello, Mama, I’m still here, see? Nothing to worry about.

_It feels like Cat only breathes freely when she sees those signals. In on a wave. Hold for three minutes, or five, or ten. Out on another. Hold. Hold. Hold. She doesn’t think about what she’ll do if the signals stop. Can’t think about it._

_Perhaps lack of oxygen to the brain is what stops her from noticing the other woman in the hall, standing down by the other side of the window into the ward. She doesn’t pay her much mind, at first. Cat and Phil aren’t the only ones who stand vigil out here; Cat assumes, quite reasonably, that her companion is another parent, watching a different incubator for their child’s subtle semaphore._

_But then comes Betsey’s wave. And as Cat becomes aware of her indrawn breath, she also notices—a smell._

_No, not a smell. A scent. A_ fragrance _, even, quite foreign to this tiny world of filtered air and antiseptic and plastic and chemicals. A whiff of cool air, heavy with the promise of rain or a recent downpour, thick rich loam, the sharp sweet tang of a bruised leaf, a hint of sweet nectar, not enough to be sickly. Unmistakably, the smell of life._

_Cat turns her head._

_If she weren’t clinging so hard to wakefulness, she’d think she was dreaming. If she weren’t using all her energy to keep from flying apart at the seams, she might collapse to the floor, gibbering in fear and disbelief. But Cat hasn’t the energy for terror or doubt or any reaction to what seems to be a total break from reality. So she just nods politely, and the woman at the window nods back, the tangle of dried bracken that makes up her hair rustling, her eyes glistening like two chips of jet. She has wings, Cat notices, opalescent and clear as a dragonfly’s, trailing from her shoulders to the ground._

Your child is in there _, the woman murmurs. She’s carrying a bundle in her arms, something swaddled in layers of fine fabric that Cat could swear is woven from spider’s silk._

Yes. She is.

Your child is dying.

 _In any other situation, Cat would go for the throat if someone dared speak that truth aloud. Now, she just sighs, her shoulders heavy with the weight of it._ I suppose so. If things go south. Yes.

I’m sorry. That’s hard. It isn’t fair.

No. It’s not.

_Silence, for a while. The other woman worries her lower lip between her teeth, stares into the ward. Her wings tremble. There’s a hole punched neatly in one of them, the gauzy edges a little singed, fine tracery of veins broken._

Do you have children? _Cat asks, just for something to say._

I do. A daughter.

What’s her name?

_The woman lets out a terribly sad sigh, so sad it makes Cat tremble._

She doesn’t have one.

Well, that’s not right. _Something in Cat’s brain has fit a few pieces together and decided that the woman’s child must be in the ward, somehow, or in a ward in the parallel universe that Cat is magically seeing into. It makes no sense for Cat to scold another bereaved parent, but then again, nothing seems to make sense tonight, so she lets herself be brutally honest._ Just because a baby is sick doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a name. You ought to give her one. Just so—so she knows who she is, when her mother calls her. She should have a name.

She should. You’re right. _Again, that suppressed, bone-deep sorrow, so deep that, even at the end of her rope as she is, Cat can’t quite look at it straight on._ What is your child’s name?

Elizabeth. Betsey, for short. Or Eliza. We can’t decide which we like better.

Elizabeth _, the woman repeats._ That’s a lovely name. Not a true one, of course. But it’s beautiful. _She bows her head over the bundle in her arms_. I hope you will love her very much when you bring her home.

If we bring her home _, Cat corrects, a little bitterly._ You said yourself—

Your child will not die. You will bring a daughter home with you in three days’ time. _The sudden strength in the woman’s voice makes Cat blink_. _She’d step back, but she finds her feet are rooted to the floor._ Know this, little mother. I have seen it, and I have spoken it, and you have heard. And I’ve enough power left for a Truthsaying. Only… _Her voice drops back down, and her shoulders sag._ Only promise me you will love her. Once she’s home with you. Promise.

I promise _, Cat says, and means it_. I will. I already do. With all my heart.

That’s good to know. Thank you.

 _The woman looks up at her. Even in the sickly glow of the fluorescents, Cat can see the tear tracks gleaming on her cheeks. Her eyes have lost their flat alien gleam. They’re soft, now, deep green and limpid with guilt and sorrow._ Sleep, little mother. Rest for a while. I’ve work to do, and it’s not for you to see.

What? No, I can’t go, I have to stay, what if something happens to Eliza…?

I’ve given you a Truthsaying, what more do you want? _The woman is growing nervous—no, frightened, shifting from foot to foot, glancing down the hall for intruders._ I’ve tarried too long. They’re watching me, they’ll think I’m trying to—

Who? What are you talking about?

I can’t say. Please, will you go? For your family’s sake. _The woman shrinks away, towards the window of the ward, and as she moves Cat catches the smallest stirring from within the bundle in her arms._

Oh. Is that—is that your daughter?

No. I have no daughter.

 _What? Cat shakes her head against the fog gathering in it_. I thought you said—but then who is she? What’s her name?

Her name _, the woman whispers, just before slipping through the solid wall like a ghost,_ is Elizabeth.

 _And the next thing Cat knows, she’s waking up in the waiting room, in the seat next to Phil, and saying,_ I just met the strangest person in the hall—what do you mean, I’ve been here for hours—?

“She was a faery,” Cat says.

“Jesus, Cat.”

“I know how it sounds, I wouldn’t be saying it if I had any other explanation—”

“That’s not what I meant.” He reaches out tentatively. “Can I…”

“Yeah, just. Careful. Her back. It’s—” _Not there_ , is the only thing to say, but Cat doesn’t have the guts to put that dreadful, ragged-edged void into words yet. It’s too monstrous to name. “I don’t know, it could hurt her. Oh, watch her head.”

“I know, hon, I know. I’ve held a baby before.”

Eliza makes a little gurgle as she’s transferred between them. Her head bobbles a little, and Phil quickly lifts her to his shoulder. It’s all too evident that there’s…well, _nothing_ underneath the back of Eliza’s onesie. The fabric sags inward as she leans against Phil. If they undressed Eliza, right now, what would they find, Cat wonders. Blood and gore, pulsing organs and veins laid bare? Or, somehow worse, just emptiness, a black hole that sucks up all light and sound and life?

Whatever it is, one thing’s for sure: it wouldn’t be human.

Because Eliza isn’t human.

No words for a while as they soak up that realization, cold with shock. Their daughter isn’t human. Like the woman Cat saw in the hall. And that woman had been carrying a baby as well. Which means, oh, which means—

“I remember,” Phil says slowly, “when they finally discharged Eliza from the hospital. When they let us take her home. You wouldn’t stop looking at her. You stared at her the whole drive back.”

“Yes. I did. I said—”

“You said it was so strange getting to leave with her at last. You said _it almost doesn’t feel like she’s really our baby_.”

Guilt curdles in Cat’s stomach. “I did say that.”

“And now this.” Eliza gurgles, unaware of the tension in the air, and Phil raises an automatic hand to soothe her, but flinches from the hollow of her back. He fixes Cat with an anguished look. “Cat. That woman you met— _what did she do with our daughter_?”

And that’s it, isn’t it? Cat chokes on a sob. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know where she came from—I didn’t even know her name—how could I possibly know what she wanted her for?”

“Well, if she was a faery—”

“Don’t, I’m sorry I even brought it up, what a stupid fucking—”

“No, but it’s the only guess we have.” His mouth forms a grim line. “I’m obviously not an expert, but…I’ve read books. Which I assumed were works of fiction, but given the circumstances. They don’t paint the rosiest picture.”

“Don’t say it. I don’t want to know.” Cat’s not the person here who did an English minor in undergrad, but cultural osmosis is a thing, and she can put two and two together. Something about Tam Lin, something about tithes, something about Hell. Yeah, that’s enough for her. She spreads her hands helplessly. “So what do we do about it, then? What are we supposed to do? Jab her with an iron poker? Leave her out in the woods and hope the, Christ, the fucking _faeries_ are game for a trade? Is that what you want?”

“No, god, of course not!” To Cat’s great relief, the somber expression on his face turns immediately to one of horrified disgust, and he scrunches his eyes shut, his cheek resting against Eliza’s mossy little head. “She’s— _she_ didn’t do anything to us, she’s only a baby, even if she’s not—human.”

“That’s right.” An odd surge of protectiveness wells up inside of Cat, drying her tears. She feels her stance changing, her shoulders squaring up and her head held high, defiant. “And anyway, that woman told me, she said _your child won’t die_. And I believe her.”

“How on earth can you possibly trust—?”

“I don’t know. But I do.” Maybe it’s magic, she thinks, suppressing a slightly hysterical giggle. God. This is their life now. Faeries and magic and changelings. She should’ve studied comparative literature instead of business. “And—obviously, I don’t know where she came from, or why she was there, but she wasn’t lying to me, she wasn’t trying to play me when she said it. No, Phil, Philip, _listen_. You didn’t see her face. Her eyes. No one’s that good of an actor. She was heartbroken, the poor thing was terrified. She was in no place to tell lies. Emotionally, I mean.”

“You were running on, like, two hours of sleep. You’d been standing in that hallway all night.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still gonna stand by that character judgment?”

“I am. She was telling the truth.” Cat speaks with the certainty of one grieving mother recognizing another. Phil winces, unimpressed.

“…And then she said you’d be bringing your daughter home in three days. So forgive me if I’m a little dubious.”

“No, no, that’s not right. She said we’d bring _a_ daughter home. And we did.” She reaches out with shaking fingers. She’s still not brave enough to press her hand to Eliza’s hollow back, but her fingertips graze the rough edges of it, and she doesn’t die, and she doesn’t faint, and there’s no blood. Eliza coos, just like any baby might. “We did.”

“You can’t just—trade one child for another. That’s not how life works. That’s not how _anything_ works.”

“No, but…” This is hard for Cat to say. She has to bite back tears for a moment, and as she goes on, her voice wobbles. “But, maybe there wasn’t anything else that we could do for, um. For _her_. With science, I mean, and, and human medicine. Maybe—god—that woman was saving her, the only way she could be saved. And having her taken was the price we had to pay. If someone had made us that offer up front—well, can you say for sure you wouldn’t have taken it?”

“What kind of bargain is that? It’s not any kind of fair, it’s just cruel, not to mention nobody told— _ahhh!_ ”

Phil jumps and holds Eliza out at arm’s length, gawking at her. She burbles, unconcerned, and makes clumsy grabs towards his face—with smooth-skinned, perfectly ordinary hands. Her onesie lays smoothly over a back that is whole and unmarred, and her hair has gone dark again. She’s human again, or so it seems.

“Oh. Oh, okay, she’s—oh,” Cat stammers, intelligently. Eliza kicks her legs in the air and giggles at the expression on Phil’s face.

“What? How? What is—what?” Phil turns her around to face Cat. “She’s—right? This is happening? You’re seeing this too?”

“Yes, I’m seeing it. Oh, for god’s sake, give her here.” Cat snatches Eliza back and cradles her against her chest. The earlier crying jag seems to have dissolved, and Eliza looks up at Cat for a moment before giving her a bright smile. Her eyes shimmer, flicker green, and then return to normal. There’s a hint of honeysuckle and rain-scent lingering in the air, but nothing more.

“I _felt_ that. I—one second she was—and then she was soft again, and warm, and—” Phil shivers, stretches his hands, laughs, rattled and wondering. “Is it always gonna be that sudden? I don’t know if my heart can handle it.”

“You’re not that old, dear. I think your heart’s going to be okay.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Look at it this way, you can only get more used to it from here,” Cat jokes, and then pauses in the act of tickling Eliza’s chin as she notices the turn their conversation has taken. “And, wait. You said _is it always going to_ —”

“I know, I know.” Phil runs a hand over his shaven head and sighs. “It’s like you said, we can’t just turn her out of the house. She’s a baby, and besides, who knows if that would even—the woman you met, whoever was watching her, they could be anywhere in the world right now. Or out of it. They might not have any idea we’re trying to…you know.”

“Yeah.”

“But I was right too. You can’t just trade one child for another. It’s not tit for tat.” He moves closer so Eliza can grip his fingers. “Whatever that woman wanted, whatever she was trying to do—she gave Eliza up. She left her alone. Maybe couldn't take care of her, maybe didn't want her, maybe something else, we'll probably never know. My point is, in any case, she’s our responsibility now. Our daughter, or as good as.”

“Even if she’s not…like us?”

“Catherine, I’ve pulled all-nighters with this child just on the off chance she’d get a bit of sleep. I’ve listened to her scream and cry and I’ve changed her diapers and I’ve rewashed every article of clothing in the house so she doesn’t have a reaction to anything on them. I _ordered from that trashy hippie catalog_ for her.” He pulls the two of them against his chest. “Human or not, at this point, she’s ours. I’m not giving her up.”

Cat makes a little noise partway between a laugh and a sob. Her heart feels too large for her chest all of a sudden, swamped with affection for Philip and for the child cuddled between them. “And I did promise, I promised I’d love her with all my heart. And I do already, so.”

“We do,” Phil corrects gently. Together, they look down at Eliza. Her face is still freckled with pink, but she’s calm and bright-eyed, nestled against her parents. _Her parents, we’re her parents_ , Cat thinks with a giddy rush of mingled sorrow and joy. “We love her. With all our hearts.”

As if she understands—and perhaps she does, who knows what a being like her is capable of—their daughter lets out a happy squeal, and then (finally, _finally_ ) relaxes into Cat’s embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song ["Family" by Mother Mother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNtnALcr5JI).
> 
> "Swan, we're begging you, please, please, for the love of god, just once will you post a fic that's about something literally any other person on earth would care about" never. how dare you suggest such a thing. leave my house this instant


End file.
